Titans: Batman, Robin, Trigon, and Cliffhanger Finale Explained

Many fans of the Titansseries were left perplexed by its first season finale. The first original live-action series created for the DC Universe streaming service, Titans was meant to present a gritty reimagining of the classic Teen Titans comics. The show went on to establish a radically different universe than those seen in the Arrowverse and DC Extended Universe, with a season-long story arc that introduced many subplots but resolved very little.

Titans' chief storyline centered upon two characters - police detective Dick Grayson (Robin) and Rachel Roth (Raven), a teenage girl with mysterious powers. The two were thrust together after the murder of Raven's mother, leaving Dick to protect Raven from a mysterious group called "The Organization" trying to find her on behalf of her father. Along the way, they met Dick's old friends Hank and Dawn (the vigilantes Hawk and Dove) and eventually joined forces with Gar Logan (a teenage boy who can shape-shift into a tiger) and Starfire - an amnesiac alien who was also seeking Raven, though she didn't remember why. Starfire stepped up to act as protector to Gar and Raven, as Dick confronted an evil from his past alongside the new Robin, Jason Todd, and sought out the advice of his closest friend, Donna Troy (aka Wonder Girl).

This winding story ultimately led into a finale that was seemingly unrelated to the preceding episode, which ended with Dick going into a farmhouse alone in search of Raven and Gar, as a magical barrier prevented Starfire and Donna from following. This was par for the course for Titans, which had previously ended its eighth episode 'Donna Troy' with a cliffhanger, only to devote the next episode to revealing the origins of Hawk and Dove. What follows will explain the chief villain of Titans, the nature of the finale and what viewers can expect to see in Titans' second season.

Who is Titans' Trigon?

Like many of the characters on Titans, Raven's father Trigon has been changed somewhat from the comic books. Originally introduced in New Teen Titans #2, Trigon was the result of a union between a holy woman of the mystic plane of Azarath and the god that she worshiped. This act caused Trigon, upon birth, to become infected with all of the evil which the people of Azarath had cleansed themselves of over millennia of monastic living. This transformed Trigon into their ultimate personification of evil, making him a demon of colossal power, who began conquering whole star-systems across multiple dimensions. Despite his near-omnipotence, Trigon was still dependent upon his children opening the way to various worlds for him to take up permanent residence in a dimension.

The Titans version of Trigon is not imposing as his comic book counterpart - at least not yet. Trigon is usually depicted as a red-skinned, horned giant with four eyes, and the first season of Titans obviously avoided that depiction. Thus far he has only been seen in a human form, played by Seamus Dever. In 'Koriand'r', Starfire discussed what little she knew of Trigon's background and how he was a being from another dimension who had come to our reality and destroyed a world before being banished. Trigon was also briefly summoned to Earth to sire a daughter (i.e. Raven) who could act as a doorway to allow him to return to our reality permanently.

While Trigon's powers are not discussed on Titans beyond having the capacity to destroy an entire planet, he possesses a diverse portfolio of superpowers in the comics. In addition to being effectively immortal, Trigon is telepathic, telekinetic, super-strong, virtually invulnerable and is capable of shape-shifting, size-shifting, transmuting and manipulating matter and even altering reality around him by sheer force of will. The only powers we see Trigon utilize before the Titans finale are his healing a wounded Gar Logan and sensing the unusual nature of his body as he is repairing it.